Look Beside You
by the ticking clock
Summary: Because they are more than just a team-they're a family.


"**When it hurts to look back and you're scared to look ahead, you can look beside you and your best friend will be there."**

**~Unknown**

* * *

There's something about them, something about these lost, broken creatures that is familiar, that makes him feel safe.

With the team, he doesn't have to worry about being angry, he doesn't have to worry that The Other Guy could come out and destroy them all. Because The Hulk likes the Avengers too.

He's not a freak to them. He's just Dr. Banner, just a man. When they do mention The Other Guy, it's only in passing or sometimes in a joking manner(in the case of Tony Stark) Their acceptance is something that he never expected, and he loves them all for it.

Without them, he doesn't know where he'd be. Certainly, he wouldn't be as happy and as well cared for as he is now.

But he doesn't want to think about the _what if's. _He wants to think about the future. Because now, he feels like he can.

* * *

They are the best of humanity, these people.

They are laughter and friendship, tears and sorrow, anger and hate, love and loss...these exceptional people, these broken men, are what makes him love Earth so much.

But they are more than that.

Even though they are so small compared to him, small and little and young, he looks to them for comfort many times. He relies on them, to pull him away from memories of his little brother, his brother who is now the one they are fighting, pull him away from his former glory, his love for Jane, from _everything. _He needs them to keep him focused.

Thor has never really relied on anyone except his brother, and even Loki he never leaned on so much. He has always been strong. Independent.

These people, these beautiful, wonderful _humans _taught him that it's okay to be weak once in awhile. It's okay to give yourself completely to your friends. It's okay that he's not always the powerful god of thunder. It's okay to cry.

They make him feel human, and somehow, he doesn't really mind.

* * *

She has never needed anyone.

At a young age she was forced to fight, to spy, to work. By the time she was a teenager, she had already killed. Dealing with the stress and anger, the adrenaline, the hatred, the fear had made her cold. She locked herself away inside a defensive shell. She reacted, she fought, she cried, she screamed, and the only people who saw her shed a tear were her enemies as they fought-but they could tell no one of her tears; they were dead.

Clint had been the only one who really knew her before the Avengers. The one who she could tell her secrets, the one person she trusted with her life. Stark she vaguely knew through their work in SHIELD together, but she didn't trust him. He was too cocky for her taste.

Natasha hadn't expected to feel safe around these people. They were all killers, broken, lost men in a war-torn world that hated them. But somehow, during training sessions, long conversations, easy banter and countless battles, they became people she could call friends. People she could trust.

She needed them. And for the first time in her life, she let the defensive shell down, and invited her teammates in.

* * *

No one had really understood him before.

He had always told Nick Fury that he preferred to watch from a distance, and he did. He didn't like being in contact with too many people, it made him uncomfortable. He was at home up high, hidden in the shadows, his bow in his hand.

Natasha had been able to coax him out, but she still didn't understand how he felt most of the time. She soothed him, calmed him comforted him, but she didn't truly understand how he felt. Not all the time.

These men, his friends, his teammates, understood. He saw it in their eyes, their actions, their knowing looks. Although Tony was often cracking jokes too often to be serious, Clint caught him staring into space, lost in his own thoughts, and knew that the man had a darker mind than it seemed. When Clint would wake screaming in the middle of the night, it was Tony who would come and sit with him. Because although the other man never mentioned it, Clint knew that Tony couldn't sleep most nights either. They bonded through nightmares and horrors that no one but themselves could understand. Steve would come and sit with them sometimes, and they would stare into the dark, not speaking, simply finding comfort in each other's presence.

When he needs to train hard, train and run and fight until the guilt and the pain and the fear leave him, he knows he can turn to Thor. And they can fight without question, fight without words, until they are both panting and out of breath. When he needs to voice his thoughts, he goes to Banner, because he's the only person who knows what's it's like to be out of control.

They understand him, and that is more than enough reason for him to come down from the dark, high, places and step out into the world.

* * *

The world doesn't make sense without them.

Modern technology is always surprising him, the world is always catching him by surprise, but when he is with them, none of that matters.

They make him laugh, They make him cry. They bring out the best and the worst in him. He doesn't know what he would do without them, where he would go. Although the public loves them now(they always have) he stills feels out of place around ordinary people. With the Avengers, he doesn't have to pretend. He doesn't need to act or stay strong or say that everything is okay when it isn't.

Steve doesn't know what he would do without Tony's annoying comments, Clint's silent companionship, Banner's talks, Natasha's wit, and Thor's humor. They keep him sane.

They make him who he is. And he wouldn't change their friendship for anything in the world.

* * *

They past all his defenses.

He uses his humor to block and hide his pain, to shake it off and make a joke out of the nightmares, out of death, out of anything that he doesn't want to face.

But they see past all of that.

It goes mostly unspoken, their understanding. He sees it in the small smiles Steve gives him, in the comfort of a hard fight with Thor, in Banner's sidelong glances in the lab late at night, in Clint's eye rolls, in Natasha's sharpness when she reprimands him for doing something stupid.

Even though sometimes he wants to kill them, they understand him for who he really is. They see past all his flaws, laugh at his jokes, sit with him through the nightmares, and pick him up when he falls down. They accept JARVIS, they accept him as Iron Man, and they accept him as Tony Stark. He hasn't told them all his secrets, but they all have things to hide. It doesn't matter. They aren't going to leave or abandon him. And he isn't going to do that to them either.

Because they are more than just a team-they're a family.


End file.
